Jackson, Mississippi’s
MAYOR Frank Melton has
an eye-to-eye relationship with Hip Hop.
And just like the powerful
culture, he’s got as many
haters as he does supporters.
Take a sneak peak into the
city David Banner put on the
map, and the mind of the most
controversial public official
you’ve never heard of.

W

hen Kwame Kilpatrick was elected mayor of Detroit in 2002, Russell Simmons labeled the then-31-year-old America’s first “Hip
Hop Mayor.” The abrasive image that rappers like Eminem, Trick
Trick and Guilty Simpson portray of the crime-riddled city (it ranked first
on CQ Press’ most recent annual City Crime Rankings: Crime in Metropolitan
America list) seemed to run congruent with Kilpatrick’s football player stature, fresh-off-the-block swagger and ability to talk both policy with pencil
pushers downtown and survival with the people on the streets. Rocking an
earring and throwing lavish parties didn’t hurt his “Hip Hop” image either.
In rough-and-tumble Philadelphia, Mayor Michael Nutter may be a little too
old to be labeled “Hip Hop.” But that didn’t stop him from reciting “Rapper’s
Delight,” word for word from beginning to end, at his inaugural ball earlier
this year. While you shouldn’t expect him to be spitting any Beanie Sigel lines
anytime soon, he still had ?uestlove from The Roots DJing alongside him.
In bustling Atlanta, Mayor Shirley Franklin has embraced the Hip Hop brass,
including rappers on everything from tourism interests to community initiatives. In 2005 she enlisted R&B/Hip Hop producer Dallas Austin to write a
theme song for the city which opened with a big “Ladies and Gentlemen!”
from Jazze Pha. She was instrumental in bringing the BET Hip Hop Awards to
town and even quoted Andre 3000 in her speech at the 2008 MLK celebration.
But none of those mayor’s relationship with Hip Hop compares to that of
Jackson, Mississippi mayor Frank Melton. He’s both locked rappers up and
courted them for votes and support. He’s shut down Hip Hop nightclubs. He
even serves as the Chairman of the Broadcast Music Industry’s (BMI) Performing Rights Committee which oversees the execution of contracts for the likes
of T.I., T-Pain, Mike Jones, Slim Thug, Lil Jon, Kanye West and Polow Da Don
just to name a few. During his 2005 mayor campaign, Melton promised local
artists that he’d use his industry rolodex to build a state-of-the-art recording studio on Jackson’s equivalent of Memphis’s Beale Street, Farish Street.
As much as Melton appears to be in tune with the Hip Hop community, you
shouldn’t expect him to rap Banner’s “Like A Pimp” at any upcoming ceremonies, although some say that’s exactly how he operates.
A native of Houston, Texas’ 5th Ward, Melton has had his iron fists in almost
every plate imaginable. The late 50-ish husband and father of two comes
from a background that includes an 18-year run as CEO and principle owner
of Jackson’s WLBT-TV 3. With financial backing from Dallas tycoon Robert
Buford and First Chicago Bank to the tune of $23-plus million, he bought
the station in 1984. Prior to his purchase, the station had a storied reputation for supporting segregation, refusing to cover the Civil Rights Movements
of the 1960’s, selling airtime to the Ku Klux Klan and featuring little to no
programming including African-Americans, even though they made up a
sizable portion of the viewing population. After many complaints, the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) revoked WLBT’s license in 1969.

Ironically, by the time the station got back in good standings and under
Melton’s rule, he used the station, and his money, to voice his own interests.
In the late eighties Melton caused a stir when he started purchasing billboards
and plastering the faces of known drug dealers and a hotline to call if you saw
them doing anything shady. But his tenure is mostly remembered for hosting
a notorious television segment, The Bottom Line, where he’d call out slacking
city officials and neighborhood drug dealers by name.
“I started that program because I had a 15 year-old kid named Ricky ‘Chicken’
Moore who came to my office at WLBT, who had just came home from juvenile,”
says Melton. “He was on his knees telling me he had been robbing the trains
on Mill Street. I had a speech at 7 p.m., he came in at 6:15 p.m. I gave him
money to join the Boys & Girls club, which he did do. But by 8:30 he was dead,
shot four times in the chest. In my heart I knew I should have taken him with
me. A mistake like that is pretty devastating. So with The Bottom Line, I felt
like it was something that was really needed to deal with some real community issues.”
To this day, the show is a subject of folklore. Ask a Jacksonian about the show
and they’ll almost automatically imitate Frank’s closing gesture, stuffing an
ink pen in his suit pocket and quipping, “And that’s the bottom line!”
“I thought Frank was crazy when I first saw The Bottom Line,” says Jackson
native and rapper Kamikaze. Together he and David Banner as the group
Crooked Lettaz introduced Jackson Hip Hop to the masses with their 1999
album Grey Skies. “I didn’t think he was gonna make it for another two years. I
thought he was going to get assassinated. But that showed me that when you
have money and power, you can do and say anything you want. Almost.”
Melton’s days at WLBT were riddled with conflict, largely because he fired many
black employees and eventually sold the station in 2002 to a majority-white
company for a sum that reportedly exceeded $200 million. The same year that
the station was sold, Melton was appointed head of the Mississippi Bureau of
Narcotics by former Governor Ronnie Musgrove.
According to Melton, he was appointed after joking with Musgrove that he’d
come run the bureau since he seemed to be having a hard time with it. To this
day, that move has drawn scrutiny because Melton reportedly had absolutely
no prior experience in law enforcement and operated seemingly under his
own rules. However, Melton insists that he did have experience, as a certified
deputy in Angelina County, Texas in the 1970’s.
Melton’s tenure provided plenty of headlines. In addition to openly carrying
weapons and perusing the city dressed in camouflage, Melton frequently set
up random roadblocks to conduct drug searches, much to the disapproval of
the U.S. Supreme Court. Melton’s hands-on approach and ethics also came into
question because of the drop in drug arrests during his reign. Since 2000, drug
arrests in Mississippi hovered around 3,000 per year. During the 14 months
that Melton ran the MBN, the total didn’t even reach 2,000. This low number,
coupled with the fact that Melton often caught young dealers, and invited
them to live in his house and work for him, birthed rumors that Melton himself
was involved in the drug trade or at least capitalizing off it.
“I’ve heard the rumors about the drugs and gun running,” says Melton. “I was
accused of bringing guns out of Texas and giving them to the gangs. I’ve been
accused of being the biggest drug dealer in Mississippi. I’ve never consumed,
distributed, or caused anyone to consume or distribute narcotics in my life. As
many dealers I’ve put in jail over the last 27 years? If I was dealing drugs and
standing up publicly calling out dealers, you’d see me floating up in the river.”
When Governor Musgrove was succeeded by Haley Barbour in 2004, Melton was
dismissed from his MBN position.

“I didn’t think [Melton] was gonna
make it another two years. I thought
he was going to get assassinated. But
that showed me that when you have
money and power, you can do and say
anything you want. almost.”
- Kamikaze
OZONE MAG // 63